Do Not Miss

I’ve been reading more comics recently than I have in about five years. Today alone I’ve finished one volume of a series I’ve been catching up on and read two Avatar graphic novels. I’m really really enjoying it but I also had a weird realisation too.

I was in town with a friend, it’s the first time I’ve been out in public for weeks and it was awesome to feel healthy enough to do so, the fact that it was a nice day helped a lot too, and we popped into my old store.

I worked there selling comics and being on top of what was happening, what was coming out, who was working on what and everything else about the industry for many years. I prided myself on knowing my shit and for a long time it was a pleasure to do.

Eventually, for many reasons, it wasn’t any more and it was time to move on. I kept reading a couple of the series I was enjoying but dropped right down on everything else and eventually got so far behind on all but one series that I fell off almost entirely.

Being a little bit more back involved now is great, but I am not finding myself interested in even looking at what is new, unchecked and untested. I know that there is a lot of great stuff coming out but discovering new things doesn’t have the same allure it once did. Maybe it’s because I am more curious about the things I’ve missed in the past five years that I know are great, but I did think that being back in my old shop while back reading would inspire me to check out more.

It had the opposite effect! It might just be an effect of that place, it certainly didn’t help that it was a Saturday and full of just the worst customers, but I just found myself uninterested in picking up anything I didn’t already know about.

The funny thing is I do miss discovering novels just from unpacking deliveries and seeing something that looked interesting, but I don’t have that same feeling at all with comics which have historically been way more appealing to me. These days when I want to try something new I would much rather have a look at what is on sale on the comixology app for super cheap and is either from a creator I recognise or is a title I’ve heard of.

I feel like I talked in circles a bit there. I didn’t have an idea of what to write about though so hey, at least it’s something.